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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Australia cancels $7 billion satellite contract with Lockheed Martin

The Australian government today announced it has canceled a $7 billion contract with Lockheed Martin, issued only eighteen months ago, to build geosynchronous communications satellites for its military.

The project — known as JP9102 — was expected to include locally controlled and operated geostationary communications satellites, as well as multiple ground stations, but on Monday the Department of Defence confirmed it no longer met “strategic priorities”.

“With the acceleration in space technologies and evolving threats in space since the project’s commencement, defence has assessed that a single orbit GEO-based satellite communications system would not meet strategic priorities,” the statement read. “As such, defence has decided to cease its current procurement activity with Lockheed Martin Australia for a single orbit GEO-based satellite communications system.”

The project had been initiated by the previous government. The new Labor government however appears less interested in defense spending, and has been cutting related government space projects aggressively.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • F

    Phew! For a second, I worried that stupid, short-sighted decisions were only made north of the equator.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Probably a good decision even if – coming from a Labour government – also likely made for the wrong reasons. The era of gold-plated GEO milsats is rapidly going away in favor of far cheaper and more numerous LEO and/or MEO milsats. Whether Australian or U.S., $7 billion is a lot of money. Australia would be far better off spending that on almost anything else than what was originally proposed.

  • Mike Borgelt

    Likely correct decision for the wrong reason as Dick says.. Australia should get on board with StarShield. We are a US satrapy anyway.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Mike Borgelt,

    No, you aren’t. You’re a self-harmed victim of too many recent bad choices made on your own. Your Left has already taken your guns and your freedom of speech while our Left is still merely trying to do the same here. Tomorrow’s election should determine, in large measure, how likely they are to succeed.

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